Aleko Axel August Eugen Lilius (2 April 1890 – 24 June 1977) was an explorer, businessman, diplomat, writer, journalist, and photographer of Finnish, Swedish, and Russian extraction.

His father was a senior translator for the Senate of Finland and served as a staff captain in the Izmaylovsky Regiment.

The first mention of Lilius as a writer is as the author of the script for the 1919 Finnish film Venusta etsimässä eli erään nuoren miehen ihmeelliset seikkailut (In Search of Venus or The Marvelous Adventures of a Young Man).

According to an article in the Singaporean The Straits Times, Lilius was convicted of fraud and "sentenced to two months hard labour" in 1929.

The original review in The New York Times (27 July 1931) reads in part: A meeting with a mysterious woman pirate chief, Lai Choi San, with several thousand ruthless buccaneers under command ... Aleko E. Lilius, English journalist, while traveling in the Orient, according to the publishers, succeeded in winning the confidence of this unusual woman, and he accompanied her and some of her desperadoes on one of their expeditions on a junk equipped with cannon ... the only white man who has ever sailed with these pirates[11]Lai Choi San is widely believed to be the source of inspiration for the character of the Dragon Lady, the oriental femme fatale in Milton Caniff"s comic strip Terry and the Pirates.

Lilius referred to Lai Choi San as Queen of the Pirates rather than Dragon Lady, but Caniff did use the Chinese name for his character.